Cleaning your sauna—cleaning influencer Auri Kananen’s top tips
It’s a good idea to clean your sauna thoroughly at least once a year. Cleaning influencer Auri Kananen shares her best tips for washing your sauna, choosing suitable cleaning products, and keeping everything spotless in between.
Cleaning your sauna—here’s how to succeed with Auri Kananen’s tips
- Start cleaning your sauna by vacuuming the floor. It’s important to remove small stones and other debris before you begin the proper cleaning. Regular vacuuming also helps with keeping your sauna tidy.
- Fill a bucket with warm water and, for instance, dish soap. Use a bathroom scrubber to apply the mixture to large surfaces, such as the wooden sauna benches and tiled walls. The order in which the surfaces are cleaned doesn't matter, so proceed however you wish.
- Use a brush to clean the gaps in benches and between tiles. A dish brush or a floor scrubbing brush works well.
- Wash or rinse the walls as needed. To avoid drip marks, clean from the bottom up. Wooden walls in particular can soak up a lot of cleaning solution.
- Finally, rinse all surfaces thoroughly with water.
- If you wish, clean the outside of the sauna stove with a cleaning product and a sponge.
A quick rinse can be enough for the sauna walls. I’d focus more on the areas people actually touch and lean against.Auri Kananen
Cleaning the glass door of your sauna
First, remove grease and soap residue from the glass door with dish soap and a bathroom scrubber. Rinse the door thoroughly. Once the door is free of dirt, you can start removing any lime scale. Kananen recommends using a steel sponge, which takes care of lime scale with just water. If you like, you can add something acidic such as vinegar, though Kananen notes that vinegar alone won't remove lime scale.
The best sauna cleaning solution is right in your kitchen
When cleaning your sauna, it’s a good idea to opt for neutral or slightly alkaline products that remove grease effectively. For instance, regular dish soap works well for cleaning a sauna, and most cleaning solutions made for saunas are essentially diluted, scented dish soap. General-purpose cleaners also work. As an eco-friendly alternative, you can choose tall oil soap or an eco-friendly dishwashing liquid, for example.
“There’s no type of dirt in a sauna that you can’t handle with ordinary cleaning products. High temperatures kill bacteria, and a sauna usually isn’t as dirty a place as people think.”
Very strong cleaning products can even stain the wooden benches or walls. Still, Kananen says it’s hard to ruin a sauna, and sufficiently mild products won’t damage sauna benches even if used undiluted.
Cleaning discolored benches
Discolorations or dark spots on the benches or other wooden surfaces can be cleaned using, for example, a cleaning stone or chlorine. The cleaning stone is the safer option, as you mustn’t use chlorine when the sauna is hot. When washing a sauna, Kananen also avoids using oven cleaners or bathroom cleaners.
How to choose the right cleaning tools
Choosing the right cleaning tools is often more important than choosing the product itself. You can clean the entire sauna—whether the walls are paneled or made of logs—with a bathroom scrubber and a scrub brush. If your benches are enclosed, you won’t need a scrub brush at all, as you'll only have large surfaces that are easily taken care of with the bathroom scrubber.
“Cleaning solution stays really well in the sponge of a bathroom scrubber, and it’s much easier to spread over large areas. Using a small sponge would take forever!” Kananen says.
Keep your sauna clean between washes
Regular maintenance reduces how often you’ll need a deep clean. A quick rinse can be done by spraying down the sauna after use. However, you don’t need to rinse it every time unless you’re tracking in dirt from outside. Monthly vacuuming also significantly extends the time between thorough cleanings.
“The floor is usually the dirtiest part of the sauna. You can easily clean it at the same time you wash the bathroom floor. Washing the floor doesn’t have to be paired with a full-scale cleaning,” Kananen says.
Using a towel or seat cover when sitting on the benches protects them from skin oils. You can wash the seat covers after each sauna session, but in Kananen’s opinion, it’s not necessary quite that often.
It’s a good idea to leave the sauna door open after use, allowing moisture to escape so it dries faster. There’s no need to keep the stove running to speed up the drying process.
“In terms of cleanliness, it doesn’t matter whether the sauna dries quickly or slowly,” Kananen notes.
